Watching Studio60

I watched “K&R Part III” again last night, and what a melancholy episode that was. Things just keep looking worse. And again, since this is not so much the third of three but the fourth of five, there’s no resolution in sight. I almost kept the DVD going for the final episode just to get that happy ending. I made myself wait for next week, but it was a struggle.

The comedy-drama balance was tipped pretty far toward drama here, with the humor being of the bittersweet variety. Even the doctor wasn’t making jokes, as he let Danny know that Jordan had gone from bad to worse. Not so “fine, fine, everything’s fine” this time. Harriet tried to be funny with the Holly Hunter impersonations, but not so much. Events there finally drove Danny to his knees, with Mary theorizing that he could lose both his fiancee and his baby in one night.

Tom’s fear of losing his brother didn’t ease up either, and the solution offered by Mary, Jack, and Matt — to try to ransom him out — just added a huge moral dilemma to the mix. When his military watchdog tried to tell him that the kidnappers were going to make a fake declaration that they’d killed one of the hostages, the bad road seemed the only one to take. But if Tom wasn’t tortured enough before, he is now.

Meanwhile, Jack and Simon are locked in a combat for which there will be no easy victory, since they both know that Simon was wrong to lose his temper in front of the press, and they both know that he shouldn’t have to apologize for it. There used to be some pleasure in watching Jack strong-arming someone into doing his will — as recently as him insisting that Tom take Kim to the Harriet dinner. But Simon’s a more formidable opponent. And there’s all that history weighing Jack down.

The flashbacks are sliding from the earlier raucous writer’s-room scenes to the “you are destroying your career” scenes, and since we know that Matt and Danny did indeed get fired, it’s like watching a car crash. Sweet of Harriet to be so concerned about Matt putting himself in professional peril, but of course, if she advocates for something, he’s got to disagree with it. Here’s the pride, and the fall is coming soon.

I remember watching this the first time through and feeling all kinds of tension — would they really kill off Jordan? would they really kill Tom’s brother, or have Tom engage in some ransom endeavor that came with a crushing moral burden? This time, I know we have that gift of happy resolutions for all waiting just one DVD episode away. But I still feel so bad for these people, ’cause they don’t know yet.

Share your thoughts on this episode in the comments, and come back later this week for a recap, memorable lines, and five questions.

_{Photo by Terri Mauro}

Studio 60, NBC, K&R III, review